North Star Shine Again

Round 1 of the Prokart series, officially the Istanbul Sportif Karting Endurance Championship (İSKDB) and organised by İKOK Istanbul Karting and Automobile Club, was held on Sunday 8 May at the Akyazı Kenan Sofuoğlu Circuit.

A record was broken in the 12th season of Sportif Karting Prokart, with a total of 20 Sportif Karting teams formed across two categories this year. Teams made up of drivers new to karting made a very good start to the season.

Kuzey Yıldızı Sportif Karting Team, winners of the last three years, showed they are a strong crew with their experienced drivers Orçun Aydemir and Ali Türkkan, winning the first three stages. Although they finished fourth in the final stage, they were the team that won Round 1.

BİZ.? Women's Sportif Karting Team kept their word. They managed to reach the podium in their first race. Elif Şen, Zeynep Şen and Burcu Burkut Erenkul started in Round 1 of Prokart. Among the 19 registered teams, they put in a superb performance. Despite the setbacks they encountered, they never dropped out of the running. Zeynep was very experienced as an active karter, Burcu had taken a break from karting and become a rally driver but could still draw on her karting skills, and Elif, returning to karting after a 7-year break, produced a superb race. The spectators and drivers from other teams were supporting the women's sportif karting team. In a race with 65 karting drivers, it was a real pleasure to watch the BİZ.? team. At the end of the day, with the points they collected from the stages, they took their places on the podium with third in the overall classification and first in the Encouragement Category. With Zeynep's second-place trophy in the Senior category, they won three trophies in total.

Each round of Prokart Sportif Karting racing is run over 4 stages. The winners are decided by the total of the points scored in the stages.

This season, qualifying is very important for the teams. The grid order will be based on qualifying times and the same order will be used for every stage. Because of the 20-kart entry, qualifying was run in two sessions, S1 and S2. The top 10 times from official practice went out in S1. At the end of qualifying, the top three places were taken by Kuzey Yıldızı, Çoban Yıldızı and Deniz Yıldızı. Qualifying proved that karting can be enjoyed from age 7 to 70. In qualifying, Orçun Aydemir (aged 19) was fastest for Kuzey Yıldızı with a time of 52.101s, while Osman Aydemir (aged 50) was second for Çoban Yıldızı with 52.297s.

Round 2 of the Istanbul Sportif Karting Endurance Championship Prokart will be held on 17 July 2016 at the Kenan Sofuoğlu Circuit in Akyazı.